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Alright, plenty has been written and analyzed about Black Lives Matter, racial justice, and cases like Stephon Clark. They have been written more stringently and better than anything I am capable of writing.

However there is one thing I do have to point out about the aftermath of the Stephon Clark shooting or rather I have a question to ask; how fucking stupid are the people running Sacramento’s law enforcement, and how stupid do they think we are?

Black Lives Matter has organized over five weeks of protests outside of Sacramento District Attorney Anne Schubert’s office demanding charges be brought against officers Terence Mercedal and Jared Robinet who were caught on video murdering Stephon Clark. During those five weeks BLM Sacramento has had a series of non violent protests and community picnics, mostly outside her office while other groups have been arranging vigils for Stephon.

1. At one of the vigils for Stephon a disabled woman in her 60s was hit by a sheriff’s department SUV and taken to the hospital. Sheriff Scott Jones suggested that the deputies in the car were scared of “paid protesters” who Jones said broke the car window. This was proven to be a lie when video evidence proved no one at the protest broke the window before the SUV sped off.

2. Weeks later, two black women were arrested at one of the protests for Stephon Clark at the D.A.’s office after Sac PD officers were hitting protesters with batons and bikes and verbally abusing them. One of the two women is trans and was intentionally put into holding with male prisoners.

3. At the end of week 4 of the protests outside her office D.A. Schubert responded to the protests saying the justice protest “would not be swayed” by the public outrage and erected a metal fence around her office, a piece of public property.

4. Meanwhile, not only have Officers Mercadal and Robinet not been charged they are still on duty. Chief Hahn does not even have the courage to suspend these officers for more than a few weeks despite them being caught on camera committing murder. When asked why the two officers would mute their cameras before the shooting, Hahn replied there are “several reasons” why an officer might mute his camera on duty, he then failed to actually list any.

Now let’s review, after 5 straight weeks of protests, instead of just listening to public demands for justice, Chief Hahn let two men who are on camera committing murder keep their jobs. Sacramento’s D.A. put up fences to ignore protesters, and Sacramento’s sheriff spread conspiracy theories. Meanwhile a woman was run over and two other women were arrested and harassed.

So after over a months of protests, getting caught running over protesters, arresting and discriminating against trans protesters, and god knows how many hours of blocked traffic, you would think that maybe just maybe it would be a little easier to just listen to the public, to fire and arrest Terrence Mercadal and Jared Robinet instead of making excuses for why you won’t do it.

But, you know, fuck me right? 🤷🏼‍♂️

It might just be easier for the public to replace the D.A. and Sheriff, both up for reelection this year. Primary voting starts on June 5th.

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Sacramento District Attorney Ann Marie Schubert, up for reelection this year, was to receive an award at the West Steps of the California capital building today from a pro law enforcement group at approximately 10:30 a.m. PST.

This comes just weeks after the shooting of Stephon Clark whose death is what source say was the 22nd on record act of fatal police violence towards a black person in the Sacramento area since 2015. Zero members of the police force have been prosecuted. The same week as the Stephon Clark killing, Schubert accepted over $13,000 in campaign donations from police unions.

District Attorney Schubert, while forsaking the Stephon Clark case, is also pursuing charges against three antifascist protesters who acted in self defense when a Nazi stabbed people at a Sacramento pro Trump rally in June 2016. The Guardian has revealed that local police and her office were working with the Nazi’s to both protect the Nazi’s identities and build up the feeble case they have to prosecute the antifascists.

I am going to repeat that last bit, the top law enforcement agent in the city of Sacramento PROTECTED NAZIS, has prosecuted the police zero times, and today she was to receive an award.

Black Lives Matter Sacramento and it’s supporters were immediately on the scene at the capital enduring intimidation from CHP and Sacramento PD. Black Lives Matter Sacramento has maintained they will not let up on protests until Stephon Clark and others get justice. More actions are coming in the future.

This will mark the third straight week of protests since Stephon Clark, a 22 year old father of two, was shot to death by Sacramento Police in his own backyard.

Photo/Graphic credit – Black Lives Matter Sacramento

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KCRA 3 reporter Mike Luery recently released the following photo on twitter from the Sheriff’s Department claiming that protesters had broken the window of the vehicle. The Sacramento Sheriff Department is using this as the justification for running over a 61 year old woman at a vigil for Stephon Clark on Saturday March 31.

Immediately after the incident, the National Lawyers Guild released video of the accident which went viral. Several protesters took a picture of the SUV’s plates as it drove away and published them on social media.

The picture Luery posted is of the same vehicle and shows a broken window in the back. However one can see in the above photo that no window has been broken nor is one broken in any video released. If the photo was taken after the incident and as the SUV was leaving and shows the window in tact then that means protesters could not have been the ones to break it.

The Sacramento Sheriff’s Department is releasing a falsified report to protect officers who committed a hit and run, a hit and run which took place at a vigil for another victim of police violence.

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An independent autopsy paid for by the Clark family revealed that of the 20 shots fired by the police 8 hit Stephon Clark. Six bullets landed in his back with two more hitting him in the upper and lower body.

The fact he was shot in the back defeats the police narrative that he brandished a weapon, or what they thought was a weapon, at them. For him to be shot six times in the back means he was either fleeing or already down on the ground.

Clark’s family was then interrogated by the police as he bled to death, the officers did not alert them that Stephon needed medical attention at any point.

In the videos of the shooting, before even bothering to check his pulse, the officers handcuffed Stephon.

The names of the officers who shot Stephon Clark are TERRENCE MERCADAL and JARED ROBINET.

Hundreds have been attending daily vigils and protests in Sacramento demanding justice. Protesters have denied people access to two Sacramento Kings games and three days of protests outside of District Attorney Schubert’s office have taken place demanding Mercadal and Robinet be fired and jailed.

More protests and vigils are being arranged in the coming days. Sacramento does not seem to be taking this death lightly nor do they seem to be slowing down until the Clark family has justice.

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This is not what the kids would call a hot take. Plenty has been written on the subject of the left and guns, however what is not being said enough is that gun control cannot be an incarceral policy. We must go after gun manufacturers themselves, not indivudual consumers.

I support an increase in background checks, a banning of sale and production of AR 15s and automatic weapons, I also want to applaud the survivors of Parkland who are taking such eloguent, organized action. However I am not in favor of anything that will increase the incarcerated population of the United States, and arbitrary incarcerating policies will do just that. Working class solidarity means solidarity with prisoners, this is why the DSA voted in favor of prison abolition at their latest national convention. As such it is the duty of socialists to go after the real enemy, the capitalist manufacturers of the weapons who profit off of post shooter paranoia, embodied mostly in the NRA.

Passing carceral gun control laws will inevitably lead to more people of color being targeted by law enforcement, as that is already the problem with American Police forces and our current gun control laws. The fact is we do have gun control in some states like California, but the laws are not used to keep weapons out of the hands of white men, the primary offenders of mass shootings and instead are used to keep people of color in jail. As Woody Guthrie simply put it, the more laws you create the more criminals you create.

To take the guns out of the hands of over priveleged white men, the number one cause of gun violence, we must organize against the group where they have found consolidated organization. The NRA receives funds from its membership and from the gun manufacturers which pays for their pro gun lobby efforts. To cut off the head of the beast that is public shooters, we must kill the queen that breeds them and gives them their stingers.

Further, more carceral laws about guns will only be an expansion of an already capitalist state power. Gun control policy should only be an attack on capitalist power, not a debilitation for the working class to arm themselves against the state, especially people of color of the working class. Gun control should be an all out attack on the NRA, a group of mostly white well paid men who fight for white supremacist capitalist interests. For the sake of those who need to be armed against the state itself, the Black Panthers, Brown Berets etc. the state cannot and must not indulge in further anti leftist fodder, and attacking those who seek self protection from the capitalist state will never end the epidemic of public shooting.